A fan trailer for a fictional Assassin’s Creed in ancient Persia is attracting a lot of attention. We analyse for you what went well – and what not so much.
There are more and more fan creations in the current Unreal Engine 5. One of the latest examples is a video for the famous Assassin’s Creed series. It shows a fictional part that is supposed to be set in Persia. We have taken a closer look at what is technically well done and what is not.
Of course, we won’t lose ourselves in trivia for pages on end or lapse into the deepest technical jargon. But this new fan trailer is an excellent opportunity to take a more detailed look at one of these projects. Because where there is light, there is also shadow.
Nothing is true, everything is allowed. So let’s get started! Or do you know something? Take a look at the video for yourself first:
That’s behind the fan trailer
First of all, a very important piece of information: Anyone who has ever created an extensive fan trailer in a game engine, be it Unreal or Unity, will know how much effort is usually put into it. That’s why, despite all the criticism, one should also appreciate that a person has dedicated himself to this subject with a lot of dedication.
You can’t expect AAA-level production here. So when we name weaknesses, we don’t mean it in a bad way at all, but purely factually related to the material shown. You will notice what we mean.
What is it all about? With the fictional title Assassin’s Creed Persia, it should be immediately clear what kind of scenario we are being shown. We are shown numerous historical places: Persepolis, the tomb of Cyrus the Great or the city of Pasargad. An unintroduced character, presumably an assassin, travels through the area and we accompany him on his way.
Who is behind it? The fan trailer was created by the Youtube channel (TeaserPlay) which, according to their own statement, is backed by a team of independent graphic designers. The aim is to create high-quality short films and concept trailers, such as the Assassin’s Creed film.
These points convince us in the fan trailer
Nobody wants to read anything negative straight away. That’s why we’ll start with the aspects of the trailer that absolutely convinced us at first sight:
- (The terrain): The Persian landscapes shown look natural and were provided with high-resolution textures. Therefore, the extensive camera shots that give us a good view of the surroundings are one of the trailer’s biggest plus points (see minute 0:24). The makers should benefit from the fact that the Unreal Engine 5 has very extensive tools for landscape design.
- (The Characters): Whether the main character, the horse or the NPCs running around, the characters show a lot of details and fit very well into the historical scenario. Especially the protagonist could have come from an official part of the series (see minute 0:28).
- (Lighting and detail): Of course, the great UE5 feature Lumen is also used in this demo, which provides realistic illumination of the game world (see minute 1:08). And the second big feature Nanite also does the honours and convinces with very detailed objects like the sculpture (see minute 0:39) or the stone tablet (see minute 1:04).
So much for our compact thoughts on this trailer. If you’d like to check out more of TeaserPlay’s creations, we recommend the recreation of the game world from GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption.
Enough shop talk, now we are especially interested in your opinion! What do you think of what was shown? Did you like it for the most part or is there absolutely nothing that swept you off your feet? Is there a scene that particularly convinced you? Feel free to write it in the comments!
